esrosedotblog

VANITY FAIR

Well, they sure got the name right. I just finished the 2005 Hollywood Edition and it is an exercise that leaves me bilious.

I trudge through all the ads at the beginning because there is almost always going to be some editorial stuff tucked in the middle. I sigh over the waste of energy that goes into the creation of all this paper, side by, over the top, side. The shear volume of it reduces the impact to nil.

There is an occasional show stopper; a handsome torso, a funny line, the Diesel ad which isn't quite as good in this series as it used to be.

Then we get to the columns; the informative James Walcott whose web site I visit daily and the homuncular, name dropping, egomaniac Dominick Dunne. A wide spread of quality and interest. This month Dunne tells about visiting Elizabeth Taylor and getting the brush on his arrival. He never meets her but gets two paras about it. Also, the current state of the lawsuit Gary Condit has filed against him. Everything is grist for the mill. Then gossip and more. Do the link on his name. This guy has his number.

Notice that I read enough to know the detail? That is the irony of the magazine; a love/hate relationship. Well, it is not that stark. It is more the paradox of liking and being repelled at the same time.

This being the Hollywood issue there is a great retrospective of Annie Leibovitz photos. There is another article on Hollywood poker games with all sorts of name dropping. And so on. It is an o.d. orgy of gossip and inside blather. I go through it all. I think that, in part, I am afraid that I will miss something. I do not.

We have tried to rid ourselves of the thing. We drop the subscription, then they make an unbeatable deal like one year for five dollars and we get back on the carousel. At least it gives us something to bitch about on a monthly basis; wretched excess. I should probably read it a few pages at a time.